different between ascent vs ascend

English

Etymology

Formed from ascend on the model of descend/descent.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??s?nt/
• Rhymes: -?nt
• Homophone: assent
• Hyphenation: as?cent

Noun

ascent (countable and uncountable, plural ascents)

1. The act of ascending; a motion upwards.

   He made a tedious ascent of Mont Blanc.

2. The way or means by which one ascends.

   There is a difficult northern ascent from Malaucene of Mont Ventoux.

3. An eminence, hill, or high place.
4. The degree of elevation of an object, or the angle it makes with a horizontal line; inclination; rising grade.

   The road has an ascent of 5 degrees.

5. (typography) The ascender height in a typeface.
6. An increase, for example in popularity or hierarchy
   • 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Games[1]

     That such a safe adaptation could come of The Hunger Games speaks more to the trilogy’s commercial ascent than the book’s actual content, which is audacious and savvy in its dark calculations.

Translations

Anagrams

• casten, enacts, scante, secant, stance

English

Etymology

From Middle English ascenden, borrowed from Old French ascendre, from Latin ascend? (“to go up, climb up to”), from ad (“to”) + scand? (“to climb”); see scan. Unrelated to accede other than common ad prefix.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??s?nd/
• Rhymes: -?nd
• Hyphenation: as?cend

Verb

ascend (third-person singular simple present ascends, present participle ascending, simple past and past participle ascended)

1. (intransitive) To move upward, to fly, to soar.

   He ascended to heaven upon a cloud.

2. (intransitive) To slope in an upward direction.
3. (transitive) To go up.

   You ascend the stairs and take a right.

4. (transitive) To succeed.

   She ascended the throne when her mother abdicated.

5. (intransitive, figuratively) To rise; to become higher, more noble, etc.
6. To trace, search or go backwards temporally (e.g., through records, genealogies, routes, etc.).

   Our inquiries ascend to the remotest antiquity.

7. (transitive, music) To become higher in pitch.

Antonyms

• descend

Related terms

• ascent
• ascendant
• ascendance
• ascendancy/ascendency
• ascending
• ascender
• ascension
• transcend

Translations

See also

• climb

Further reading

• ascend in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• ascend in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Dances, dances, decans, descan

French

Verb

ascend

1. third-person singular present indicative of ascendre